Cumulative Comprehensive Education (CCE)?

A very interesting item of news is buried in the vast volumes of print and net news during the last two days. 66,00,000 (6.6 million) students took the Uttar Pradesh Board Examinations (UP Board) for standard 10 and 12 this year. The examinations started on February 6, 2018. There are some dropouts or absentees in every examination and the number is usually less than one to two percent. By third day of this examination, more than 6,00,000 students had dropped out, making it 10 percent of dropouts. On the fourth day, the number went up to more than 10,00,000 (one million), making it more than 15%. The highest absentee rate recorded in UP itself earlier was 6%. Thus the past records was far exceeded this year.

The numbers themselves may not tell the real tale. The Board introduced many new measures this year to curb unfair practices during conduct of examination. Eduction mafia found that mass copying was tough going indeed, this year. Installation of CCTV cameras, rounds by special squads, and even inspections by the state's Deputy Chief Minister who holds the Education portfolio were among the measures to prevent mass copying and impersonation. These measures made the task of complicity by invigilators impossible. Reports indicate that the absentees were mostly those from other states who would enrol at schools in UP not for study but for having been assured of a pass in the examination! Many of them never attended classes in the school. Impersonation was one of the methods adopted for ensuring a pass in the examination. This became impossible due to installation of CCTV cameras. Sure success was no longer that sure now.

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Those in the touch with education field lament about the drop in the level of education over the last several decades. A BA (Honours) degree from Madras University was considered as something special six or seven decades ago. A B.Tech or ME degree was a pride possession three decades ago. Mushrooming of educational institutions, colleges providing assured degrees, drop in invigilation and evaluation standards and introduction of multi-choice questions have all contributed their mite to drag down the standards of education. Questions that have answers in them (MCQs) were a novelty when introduced, but diluted the necessity of hard work for securing marks in the examinations. Their introduction was with the arguments that examinations were memory tests rather than testing knowledge and skills earlier. The joke today is that a student cannot answer a question asking his name unless he is given four options!

Cumulative Comprehensive Education (CCE) or sometimes referred as Continuous Comprehensive Education is now used by organisations like CBSE and State Education Boards all over the country. CCE aims at helping improve a student's performance by identifying his/her learning difficulties at regular intervals of time right from the beginning of the academic period and thereby employ suitable remedial measures for enhancing learning performance. The scheme of CCE has continuous inbuilt flexibility for schools to plans as per guidelines provided in the scheme. Formative and Summative Assessment methods are used for awarding marks and grades to students. Generally two tests before mid-term examination and two tests between mid-term and final examination are held and marks obtained in them with prescribed weightage are added to mid-term and end-term examinations.

At the outset, this method of Formative Assessment (FA) and Summative Assessment (SA) looks a good combination indeed. This method provides for continuous evaluation of a student and does justice to a student who has a bad day on the final examination day. One of the elements of CCE is recognising and encouraging specific abilities of students who do not do well in academics but do well in other co-curricular activities. Thus a student will get marks for attending classes regularly, behaving well with other students and taking part in non-academic activities even though he may lag behind in academic work. Though the objective is laudable, its impact on academic standards cannot be underestimated. A child getting more interested in music and dance than academic work will also get due weightage in the overall education evaluation. This also calls for maintenance of exhaustive records by the teachers, thereby increasing their desk work. This is one of the complaints of teachers in this system.

Cumulative assessment has another interesting feature. The system of formative assessment and weightage given to extra-curricular activities ensures that students accumulate the required marks for passing even before the final examination, thus reducing the final act as a mere formality for many of them. If memory test was the weakling in the earlier system, this methodology is a major deficiency in the cumulative assessment system. Lack of requisite skills in preparation of quality question papers and their regular leakage add to the problem of conducting worthy examinations.  

The effect of such evaluation is now returning to haunt the system in the form of difficulties in selection of teachers for the next generation. Someone who passed out of the system by getting the benefit of such evaluation has now the responsibility of teaching his students in academics while he himself did not excel in academics when he was a student. The teacher training system also suffers from teacher trainers, who are products of such evaluation standards. Persons sitting on interview boards for selection of teachers struggle to select one out of those appearing in the selection process since they are unable to find a candidate meeting the required standards. They are often confronted with candidates who are unable to demonstrate handling of a class suggested by the interviewing committee. The committee has to perforce judge them on the basis of a demonstration suggested by the candidates themselves!  

Educational institutions are also under pressure to show higher result levels to enable them to compete in the market for intake of students in the next academic year. Strict evaluation means lower pass percentages and lower popularity among the community. Easier way out is rehearsing "important questions" repeatedly before examinations. Excessive and unnecessary reliance on "student feedback" on evaluation of teachers tends to further complicate issues. Provision of grace marks lowers the bar and brings down the overall academic standards even more.

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The academic standards are fast dipping. It is generally said that each generation blames the next one for lowering standards of life in various disciplines. Even after providing for this criticism, the standards of academics is indeed dipping. We are producing graduates in various disciplines who are falling short of the expected levels. Many of them are unemployable in their respective areas of academic degrees. A lot of effort is put at the top level for opening more educational institutions of excellence. Various shades of politics in academic institutions is gathering more and more strength. Administrators are under severe pressure from various quarters. There are many challenging issues confronting those assigned with the task of strengthening academic standards. The tendency of those in authority not recognising these challenges has confounded the problem.

In this background, it is time now to make a comprehensive review of the CCE, both in its content and implementation.